The Penalty Part 8

"Good-morning, Blizzard." The young man nodded curtly and turned to Barbara. "Do you wish all the k.n.o.bs changed?"

"Please."

Without another word, the young man knelt at the door by which he had entered and began with the aid of a long screw-driver to remove its ancient lock of j.a.panned iron and coa.r.s.e white china.

"What's the best news with you, Harry?"

The young man did not look up from his work. "That the water'll soon be warm enough for swimming," he said.

To Barbara that answer seemed pleasantly indicative of a healthy nature and a healthy mind.

"It's a curious thing," observed the beggar, "how many more people drown themselves when the water is nice and warm than when it is cold and inhospitable. And yet it's in the cold months that the most people receive visits from despair."

Bubbles looked up, wondering. In his experience the legless beggar had no manner of language different from that of the streets to which he belonged. But now he spoke as Miss Barbara spoke, only, perhaps we may be permitted so to express it, very much more so.

Barbara turned to the beggar. "I haven't paid you."

But he retreated in smiling protest, picked up his hand-organ, and slung it across his shoulders. "The door, Bubbles."

Bubbles sprang to let the beggar out.

"To-morrow," said Barbara, "at the same time. Good-by, and thank you."

"Good-by, and thank _you_," said Blizzard.

Bubbles followed him to the head of the stairs and watched, not without admiration, the astounding ease of the legless one's rapid descent.

Harry, the workman, having disengaged the old j.a.panned lock from the door, rose to his feet, and turned to Barbara with a certain quiet eagerness. "Look here," he said, "it's none of my business, but I know, and you don't. That man," he waved the screw-driver toward the door by which Blizzard had departed, "is poison. There's nothing he'd stop at. Nothing."

"Quite so," said Barbara coldly; "and, as you say, it's hardly anybody's affair but mine."

The workman was good-nature personified. "If you _must_ go on with him,"

he said, "haven't you a big brother or somebody with nothing better to do than drop in, and," his eyes sought the clay head of Blizzard, "watch the good work go on?" He stepped closer to the head, and examined it with real interest. "It _is_ good work," he said; "it's splendid."

Barbara was mollified. "What," she said, "is so very wrong about poor Mr. Blizzard?"

"Oh," said the young man, "we know a great deal about him, and we are trying very hard to gather the proofs."

"_We?_"

"I'm a very little wheel in the machinery of the secret service."

"I _knew_," said Barbara, "the moment I saw you that you weren't _only_ a locksmith or a carpenter. Does Mr. Blizzard know what you are?"

"He can't prove it, unless you tell him."

"I sha'n't do that."

"How often will he have to pose for you?"

"Heaven only knows. But I think"--and she looked the young man in the face, and smiled, for his face had charmed her--"I think that if ever I finish with Mr. Blizzard, I shall ask you to be my next model."

The admiration with which the young man regarded Barbara was no less frankly and openly expressed than was hers for him. "Until this moment,"

he said, "I have never understood the eager desire which some people have to sit for their portraits. Whenever _you_ say."

She laughed. "And the new door-k.n.o.bs?"

"Just because a man belongs to the secret service," returned the youth, "is no reason why he shouldn't attempt once in a while to do something really useful."

And he knelt once more and took up his work where he had left off.

Barbara stood by and watched him at it. "I would like to do his hands, too," she thought, "when I can get round to it." They were very strong, square, able hands. She found herself wishing to touch them. And since this was a wish that she had never experienced for any other pair of hands, she wondered at herself with a frank and childish wonder.

"Your taxi, Miss Barbara."

"Thank you, Bubbles."

She slipped out of her overall, and with swift touches adjusted her hat at a small mirror. The secret-service agent once more rose from his knees.

"Good-by," said Barbara, "and thank you, and don't forget."

"Never," said he.

She shook hands with him, and his firm strong clasp, literally swallowing her own little hand, was immensely pleasant to her and of a fine friendliness.

"Good-by, Bubbles. See you in the morning."

"Good-by, Miss Barbara."

She was gone. The man resumed his work. The boy watched.

"Harry."

"What?"

"Was I right?"

"Right."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Harry, the workman, ... rose to his feet, and turned to Barbara with a certain quiet eagerness]

"A wonder--or not?"

"A wonder."

"Harry."

"What?"